Jesuit priest comes out in support of radical Canadian transgender ‘rights’ bill

TORONTO, February 3, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A Jesuit priest has come out in favor of the Canadian government’s radical transgender rights Bill C-16.

Fr. Gilles Mongeau, formerly the archdiocese liaison to the Catholic LGBTQ-affirming All Inclusive Ministries, told America magazine that he backs the bill.

“To the extent that it seeks to protect the quest of ‘trans’ people to be themselves in a safe environment, Bill C-16 is something to be applauded by Christians,” he said.

The bill, which passed the House and is now in the Senate, makes it a hate crime to discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression.

Critics have denounced it as an unprecedented threat to free speech that could lead to fines or jail for those who refuse to use gender-neutral pronouns while also entrenching the fraudulent theory of gender fluidity as law.

Mongeau, who is an associate professor of systematic theology at the Jesuit Regis College, says the Catholic Church has “no official teaching about gender identity or ‘trans’ persons.”

And Mongeau “underlines the need to, as Pope Francis suggests, accompany real people in real situations,” notes the article by Dean Dettloff.

While the pope has criticized gender theory, he has used preferred pronouns in specific situations, notably observing of a letter he received from a transgender man: “He who was a she, but is a he.”

“The question of pronouns cannot be separated from the real lives of people,” contended Mongeau.

“Asking these questions in the abstract is part of the problem we are facing because it makes it possible to evoke the image or idea that ‘trans’ people somehow serve an agenda of attacking the moral fiber of society or serve an anti-Christian agenda,” he added.

“‘Trans’ people, in my experience, are trying to live healthy, productive and (sometimes) spiritually fruitful lives.”

New Ways Ministry, which advocates the Catholic Church accept all LGBTQ lifestyles and homosexual “marriage,” lauded Mongeau as an “important voice in support of a national bill for transgender equality.”

But Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians, decried the Jesuit’s stance.

Mongeau claims “his support for Bill C-16 is in keeping with Pope Francis’ teaching to accompany real people in real situations, and that the bill will ‘protect the quest of ‘trans’ people to be themselves,’” she told LifeSiteNews in an email.

“Fr. Mongeau is wrong on both counts.”

Catholic, Cretella says Bill C-16 “is rooted in gender ideology.” That ideology “claims that a feminine essence or female soul can be trapped in a male body (and vice versa) is a re-emergence of the Gnostic heresy.”

“Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis has been clear that gender ideology is at odds with both the Catholic faith and human flourishing,” she told LifeSiteNews.

“He has condemned it for militating against ‘the order of creation’ and compared its propagation to ‘the educational policies of Hitler. The Holy Father has gone so far as to say, ‘Gender ideology is demonic!’”

“Pope Francis is speaking very firmly against this idea of gender over biological sex,” Lock told LifeSiteNews.

“He says that we are born in our biological sex and that is truly who we are, and the idea that we can rewrite that or superimpose something over that goes against who God created us to be.”

Francis also criticized the theory of gender fluidity as “ideological colonization,” and denounced teaching it to young children as “normalizing this experience,” Lock said.

Entrenching gender theory in law “is introducing a kind of relativism,” he pointed out, “which ultimately doesn’t help the human person, because there is a truth.”

Acting from “this relativistic perspective” people simply “choose to ignore a body of knowledge” on the basis of “well, I feel different from that, I can invalidate all that,” he said.

Indeed, Cretella points out, “Scientifically, there is no such thing as a ‘trans person.’”

The American College of Pediatricians holds that “any policy or law that conditions children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.”

The XY and XX chromosomes “are genetic markers of male and female, respectively – not genetic markers of a disorder,” Cretella pointed out.

“Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident.”

And the awareness of being male or female “develops over time,” she explained, “and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward.”

Experts agree that 75 percent to 95 percent of young children who suffer from genuine gender dysphoria will identify with biological sex by young adulthood.

She pointed out how the promotion of gender ideology harms real people:

Gender confused children who are put on puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones later. This combination leads to permanent sterility.

Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.

Rates of suicide are nearly 20 times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBTQ-affirming countries.

Mongeau helps out occasionally at All Inclusive Ministries, which meets at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish and describes itself as a “welcoming, safe, and affirming Catholic community” that serves “as a bridge between the Church and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons.”

He is the superior superior of Cardoner Jesuit Community, the residence for young Jesuits in philosophy studies, and helped implement the Ontario bishops’ 2004 Pastoral Guidelines for Students with Same Sex Orientation.

Those guideline were updated in the bishops’ 2015 document, "The Human Person Love and Sexuality."